From the earlier Neolithic period, people began to build ceremonial and funerary monuments. One of the earliest types of site is the causewayed enclosure. These have one or more ditch circuits, often with corresponding banks, which are not continuous but are interrupted by a series of gaps or causeways.

The building of these earthworks involved much effort and they must have been important to the communities which raised and used them. Some would not have been particularly effective at keeping people or animals in or out, but a few have a more defensive aspect. Many were built on hilltops and were prominent in the landscape; they may have had ceremonial functions. This is reflected in the finds of human and animal bones and artefacts and some ‘special’ items which often occur in the ditches.

The enclosures were likely to have been used in a number of different ways. Some sites have evidence for funerary practices, some for communal feasting, and some have artefacts not produced locally. There is evidence that people at times lived within the enclosures. It is likely that at least some of these sites were places where communities living in scattered farmsteads could meet at intervals for social and religious reasons, and to trade in certain goods